Real Estate For Sale

ISN'T it great to be working in Toowoomba? After almost a dozen years commuting to Brisbane, most days, it is a joy to take that short drive to work in Ruthven Street.

It is also a joy to know that, God willing, I am possibly more likely to make it home safe each evening by tackling the 7km trip rather than the 125km slog from Brisbane.

But there's a downside too. For starters I had to relinquish my fully maintained company car, in the job change, and lease my own car - oh, poor old Greg!

What car to buy, that was the question?

I felt that being in regional Australia I should finally invest in a ute.

More challenges, what ute? Oh my goodness, these things can cost up to $80,000 - that was far too much.

Against all the advice I could receive I finally settled on a Great Wall twin-cab ute sort of thing.

"Chinese rubbish", "it will last a day", "wasting your money" - these were the types of encouraging comments I received from friends and other experts.

I made the transaction with chamber member Len Patti Motors (www.lenpatti.com.au/) , a nice shiny black one, and haven't looked back.

The $22,990 pricetag seemed like a small price to pay for such a fine machine (sounds a bit like the transaction for a donkey in Bing Crosby's famous Christmas yarn Small One when Joseph and Mary were in need of transport to Bethlehem).

As it turned out the Great Wall purchase was one of my best decisions as, little did I know, I soon found myself carrying lots of boxes and screens and satchels for, almost, weekly chamber seminars and workshop across the Toowoomba Regional Council area.

The "Wall" hums along, never misses a beat, I am feeling very content.

And I found a Great Wall meeting place, Toowoomba's garbage tip (I know there are fancier names for this institution but I'll ignore them) and every Sunday morning you can see happy little Great Wall drivers taking their green waste to green waste Heaven and exchanging greetings like, "are you happy with the Wall?" - happy people, contented people.